Rokeby Street: another poetic image Colin. Thank you very much.
Just a private view:
This image [to me] represents the old world order of top down politics, were local people are not there to be consulted, they're there to be told what to do. It also shows a blindness, in the sight of the developers, the architects, and those who sheepishly followed their narrowed, lack of vision. The authorities also failed to capitalise on the good that already existed in these communities from the 'get-go'. Others heard 'ghetto', indeed, that's what they thought, visiting the sites.
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The irony in all this is that it may not have happened, had WWII not taken place. Seeing all those bombed out, crumbling wrecks of communities; the private lives of people now exposed to public view after another night of Blitzkrieg. A family portrait still hangs on the dining room wall, and through a breezy, jaggered hole gazes down on the people emerging bleary-eyed from the shelter. The dead are concealed by freshly turned mounds of rumble - which only last night stood proud as someone's home. The smell, and disease are harder to mask though.
I think after all this there was a real desire to start a-new, to raze to the ground, any memories of when we were once vulnerable. Building new communities was a kind of restorative solution to those traumatic times everyone experienced during the war. It temporarily put us back in control, with more hygienic, disease-free, controlled, spacious and 'new' housing schemes. Sadly, these were post-traumatic stress induced solutions. The physical damage of the war last six years; the psychological damage, much longer.
It influenced the wholesale housing solutions that followed in the post war years. Yes, economy, speed and programme all played a part too. But we could have restored what we had, balanced with the new Eldon Road type schemes - rather than to embrace a program of - 'starting with a complete clean slate'. The housing that followed enjoyed a mixed reception, some new housing types, like the tenements [tennies] got a lot right, location, a sense of place, community, self policing, creche-like surveillance for children playing in the centre. Others not so good, with high rise housing, out in the suburbs.
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